Off The Deep End
by sevfank1
Summary: On Hermione's 18th birthday, she gets a present she never expected.


A/N: I am taking a page out of my sister Ksevfansd's book and using Evil!Neville as my "villain". It was in a Potter Place post where we were discussing the Dark Harbor scene where Alan's character sheds his clothes in order to shed his past life. Someone brought up that we would all like to see another character dressed in black do that. I haven't been able to get that out of my mind. Here is the plot bunny that hatched itself.

Thanks, Sis, for giving me the courage to post my first fan-fiction almost a year after I wrote it.

Anti-litigation charm: not mine, I am only playing with JKR's characters.

Neville furtively looked around the Great Hall. Today was the day – Hermione's 18th birthday. He was going to give her a birthday present that she and the other Gryffindors would never forget. Not that the others would enjoy it in the same way Hermione would but to each their own. He had worked on this in the greenhouses for the last several days. The herbs were easy to grind up – ginseng, myrtle leaves and lavender. The hardest part was managing to tie it all together with the secret ingredient. Amazingly, Hagrid had provided the answer. Poultices worked better when some hair or essence of the animal to be healed was included in the cure. After grinding a piece of Hermione's hair with the herbs, the powder was complete. Now all he had to do was sit back and remain a nameless face in the crowd. Here came the owls.

Hermione watched Professor Snape as the owls headed into the hall. She had been watching him more than she should lately. It was no use though – he was never going to see her as anything other than an insufferable know-it-all. One of the owls circled him several times. She smothered a laugh as he reached up to grab the annoying owl. That was when she noticed the powder falling from the letter compartment on the owl's foot. "That can't be good," she thought.

He stood up and looked straight at her, a glazed look on his face. His fingers began working at the buttons on his frock coat. As button after button came undone, he took another step toward her. It was as if time had slowed down to a crawl. The hall was silent, all but one not knowing or understanding what was happening. He was about ten feet from her when he threw the coat off his shoulders which landed on a speechless (for once) Ginny Weasley. A smoldering, intense gaze had replaced the glazed look. He reached up to the buttons on his white linen shirt and ripped them open; the buttons scattered violently across the floor.

Hermione swallowed several times, trying to say something, anything, as her Potions' professor and crush was undressing himself in front of her. The fact that he was doing this in front of the Great Hall was far from her mind at the moment. She stared at the black spiky hair that covered his chest and trailed in a line downward past his trousers' edge. Startled and actually quite pleased at the bulge that she could see, she nonetheless backed up a little as he got closer to her.

His hands were already at the buttons on his trousers and had undone several of them. He kicked off his shoes and socks and lowered his trousers. His eyes bore into hers as he smoothly stepped out of them.

Hermione fanned herself feverishly as she took in the sight of him in his black silk boxers and nothing else.

His hands hooked themselves in the waistband of his boxers, ready to unleash himself on the world. He shook his head for a moment and the emotion in his eyes changed from desire to shock and fury.

"What the fuck is going on here, Miss Granger?" he shouted.

That seemed to wake her up. Hermione looked him up and down, not letting his anger intimidate her. After all, she wasn't responsible for this.

"I see no difference, sir."

"Detention, tonight at 7:00 PM – don't be late." He growled, trying to quiet the laughter that had burst out in the room. He then swept out of the Great Hall, trying to retain whatever dignity he had left.

Chaos erupted when the door swung shut.

No one noticed Neville smirking to himself. "Happy birthday, Hermione."


End file.
